Oceans of Crime

Maritime Piracy and Transnational Security in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh

Carolin Liss

Publication Year: 2010

Southeast Asia and Bangladesh are at present global hot spots of pirate attacks on merchant vessels and fishing boats. This book explains why, and in what form, piracy still exists. It offers an integrated analysis of the root causes of piracy, linking declining fish stocks, organized crime networks, radical politically motivated groups, the use of flags of convenience, the lack of state control over national territory, and the activities of private security companies, and identifies their wider security implications.

Contents

Maps, Tables, and Photos

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

No book is ever written alone. Indeed, without the help of a number of
people in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia, I could not have
completed my Ph.D. thesis on which this book is based and I hope they
realize how much...

Introduction

Everybody knows what a pirate is. We all have mental images of bearded
men with earrings, a peg leg, an eyepatch, and a parrot on the shoulder as
epitomized by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Long John Silver. The activities of
pirates also do not seem...

PART I: CONTEMPORARY PIRACY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND BANGLADESH

On 23 February 2000 the Japanese-owned tanker MT Global Mars was
attacked in the Malacca Strait by a gang of twenty pirates, who approached
the tanker in a fishing vessel and climbed on board unnoticed. Once on
board, the pirates, masked...

2. Piracy and Fishers: Attacks on Small Craft in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh

Noni Gapal was born in 1964 in Chittagong district and from early
childhood went out to sea on his family’s fishing vessel. He learned the
essential fishing skills from his father, but was unable to go to school to
learn how to read and write. In 1989, Noni Gapal married a local girl and
his family expanded...

PART II: THE SEA

3. The Fishing Industry

On 2 February 2005, a fleet of trawlers fishing near Pulau Jerajak in the
Malacca Strait (see Map 2.2 in Chapter 2) was attacked by twelve pirates
who approached their victims under the classic pretext of wanting to
trade fish with the trawlers. The perpetrators, armed with M-16 rifles,
boarded three...

4. Merchant Shipping

Shipping and maritime trade are an international business, not only in the
sense that vessels transport goods from one country or region to another,
but also in regard to the ownership and operation of vessels. For example,
a ship may be owned by an individual or a firm in Indonesia, but managed
by a company based in...

PART III: THE DARK SIDE

5. Organized Crime

In March 2002 the Honduras-registered MT Han Wei was boarded in broad
daylight by a gang of pirates armed with AK-47 rifles about one hundred
miles off the Thai island of Phuket (Map 1.1 in Chapter 1). The vessel had
been on its way from...

6. Terrorist and Guerrilla Movements

On 18 July 2006, Indonesian authorities arrested three former members of
the GAM for their alleged involvement in a string of pirate attacks in the
northern Malacca Strait, including an attack on a vessel carrying aid for
tsunami victims. The three pirates were not arrested at sea, but captured
in Lhokseumawe, a city...

PART IV: COUNTER-FORCES

7. State Responses to Piracy

In an interview with the author, Daniel Tan, the executive director of the
Singapore Shipping Association (SSA), explained that merchant vessels
simply exist to transport goods from point A to point B. Shipowners and
operators, therefore,=...

8. Privatizing the Fight against Piracy

[T]he most immediate telling effect on the modern buccaneers may well
come not as a result of high-sounding pontifications from international
bodies. It may well result from the availability of well trained and equipped
commercial marine security forces operating out of North America,
Europe, Africa and...

Conclusion

Pirate attacks occurred regularly in Southeast Asia and the waters of
Bangladesh between 1992 and 2006. Within this region piracy hot spots
shifted between countries and ocean areas over time. In the early 1990s the
waters between the...

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